


The Director's Craving

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Director Daisy Johnson, Emotional Support, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Future Fic, Motorcycles, POV Skye | Daisy Johnson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-15
Updated: 2016-12-15
Packaged: 2018-09-08 18:17:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8855905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: Coulson has a sudden craving for donuts.
(based on a tumblr prompt)





	

“Are you sure Mack is okay with us taking his bike? He’s been working on this one recently.”

“Live a little,” Coulson tells her, tightening his grip on her waist. “And stop worrying so much.”

Like it’s that easy, these days.

They ride on, Daisy looking at the street names to locate the address Coulson so mysteriously had given her.

The mystery clears up pretty soon, as soon as they arrive at the shop.

A little coffee stand, with a ridiculously tongue-in-cheek name on fashionable typography over the door. The place looks new and Daisy wonders how Coulson knows about it, when did he had time to check the DC desserts scene without her knowing. Daisy likes the idea: she likes thinking of Coulson as having this secrete parallel existence, spending a few minutes reading foodie blogs to unwind, without telling anyone.

She chuckles a little when they get there, and they stay on the bike while they take off their helmets and talk.

“Donuts, uh?” she asks, looking at him over her shoulder.

“I had a craving.”

She gestures. “For donuts and... for making me ride this.”

“You’re better than me anyway.”

“This one rides itself,” she comments. “You know what Mack says about it.”

“No, what?”

She wiggles a bit, brushing her back against Coulson’s chest, pressing her ass against his groin.

“Safest thing you’ll have between your legs,” she says, repeating Mack’s lame joke.

Coulson chokes with shock at her words and her touch. Daisy laughs, getting down and grabbing him by the arm.

“Come on then, let’s get you some donuts.”

They’re artisan, hipster donuts, and inside the shop is the kind of place that features prominently in Sunday supplements as “places to try” or “city’s hottest spots” and all that. The kind of place Coulson loves - even though their lives dodn’t leave room for reading Sunday supplements exactly. Her minds drift back to it, to work, but it’s more than work, really. She hesitates on the steps, wondering if she really has a right to be here, and not be back in the base, doing what she has to do. Coulson takes her hand and tugs at her gently, and she wonders if she has a right to this, too. Him. _Us_. This, his fingers laced with hers like this. She wonders if she has earned it at all. But even doubtful, she follows him inside.

“What should we get?” he says, excited at the many options, the delicious-looking pastries shining on the counter. “The strawberry cronut?”

Daisy grimaces.

“Too sweet, _too much_.”

“Well, I’m getting one of those,” Coulson declares, huffing.

She smiles. “Of course you are.”

“The plain cinnamon one for you?” he guesses.

Daisy shrugs. 

“I have an appreciation for the classics,.” she replies.

The words make Coulson give up one of his cute, tiny smiles of pleasure.

“I’ll get us some coffee, too,” he tells her.

Daisy grins, thinking, _and flirt a bit with the cashier, too_. She is not sure Coulson himself is aware he does it, it’s like an unconscious habit, he has this thing about flirting with those in the service industry; the gas station cashier, the waiter at their restaurant, the concierge at their hotel, it doesn’t seem to matter. It makes Daisy picture him easily as the SHIELD agent he once was rather than the one he is now - the one who used to show up in crime scenes to “smooth things over” with local enforcement and to feed the press lie after lie with a smirk. Now he spends his days chasing bad guys down dark alleys and taking orders from a 30-year-old ex-criminal. She prefers it, but seeing glimpses of why he was so good at the other thing, well, it’s _interesting_. 

It gives her certain calm watching him do things from the outside now - small, everyday things, like paying for the coffee and donuts. She has been too inside her head lately, she feels like she hasn’t lifted her glance in ages. Seeing the interaction, like she were spying on Coulson, feel liberating.

There’s a little bench outside the cafe, and even though the night is a little cold, they stay there, leaning against the back and watching the quiet street before them. Someone arrives, gives Mack’s bike an appreciative look, goes into the shop..

“Nice night,” Coulson comments, pleased with how his plan turned out.

Daisy bites into the pastry. Okay, she’ll admit, it’s a pretty good donut.

“We could have brought Lola,” she says wistfully, as if the gorgeous car was a real person. “Why did you want the bike?”

“As a favor to Mack,” he says, lying. “To see how it did on the road.”

Daisy raises an eyebrow.

“You just wanted to wrap your arms around me while I rode, didn’t you?”

He snorts, like he is offended. Which means she’s right.

She likes how he thinks.

As a romantic partner Coulson was able to brought out in her the same qualities he did as her boss or fellow agent - he didn’t bring out anything new, just let her be herself in ways no one had before. she could be passionate and playful with him, but she could also focus on stuff that wasn’t their relationship. Miles and Lincoln, they had both resented her for her commitment to her causes (which was pretty ironic in Miles’ case, after all his ranting about the cause), always vying for more attention, more commitment to them, for _more_ , even when she couldn’t give them more. Coulson is not like that. And it’s not like he dragged her here to satisfy his craving for donuts when she was doing something important, but she is still surprised he dragged her at all.

Lost in thought she realizes she has finished the donut and drank the coffee already. God, was she this hungry? She hadn’t noticed.

“Why are we here, seriously?”

Coulson doesn’t reply right away. He has finished eating too, and takes their trash to the bin before walking back to Daisy’s side.

“You’ve been working too hard,” he tells her, looking out at the dark sky once more. “You looked like you needed a break.”

“So you decided to steal me from the base?”

“I decided to steal Mack’s bike, you came along for the ride.”

He smiles at her but there’s something forced about it. She reaches out, her fingertips skimming the surface of his jacket with shyness, as if they hadn’t been sleeping together for ages. 

“Okay, okay, I just don’t want you to worry about me like this,” she tells him. She doesn’t want to cause worry for anyone, much less Coulson. She is the one to say yes to this new position, it was her choice. “I can handle the job.”

“I know you can, I’ve always known. I just wanted you to take a breather.”

“Am I allowed to do that?” she wonders out loud.

Coulson knows she doesn’t want him to answer. They might be taking a breather, but it just feels like a moment of pause after the last horrible thing that has happened, and the next even-more-horrible thing. She’s always felt responsible, but now it’s even more than that, because on paper she is responsible for it all.

“I know how much you’ve been working,” he says. “You’ve always done that, ever since I’ve known you. I’ve never known someone who tries as hard as you,” he adds and it still gets to Daisy, it still shocks her, to hear him say this kind of words, no matter how often he says them, how wonderfully often he says them. It must show on her face - she should be better at hiding stuff now that she is the boss, but she can never be good at hiding stuff from Phil - because he pauses for a moment, like he wants to look at her and take the effect of his words in. “You look like you are just… preparing.”

“I am,” she tells him. “I have to, we never know when…”

She trails off, looking at his eyes. He looks like he wants to kiss her right now. That energy she can read in his vibrations like he’s restraining himself from it - that he should be tentative about it, after all that’s happened between them, is a bit endearing. 

But even only half-talking about it helps, and she knows she should have talked about with _with Coulson_ sooner. Something is lifted.

“If you really wanted me to take a break you could have taken me to Paris or something.”

Coulson gives her an amused look.

“Next time, if you want.”

There’s a dark underlying to the promise, next time meaning next time after things get rough again, but Daisy tries not to think about that. She leaves the bench. She grabs Coulson by the lapels. She likes his biker jacket. It’s kind of hipster, though he would never admit to it.

Coulson wraps his arms around her, loose, resting his hands on her hips.

“Being director is hard,” she says in a whine.

He tilts his head to one side slightly, amused. “You don’t say?”

“How did you do it?” Daisy asks.

“Very badly, if you remember.”

Daisy laughs and puts her head against his chest. He smells of sugar powder. She looks up.

“Well, you didn’t have me.”

“Yes, that was it, I didn’t have you,” he says, kissing back. He tastes of sugar powder. Nice.

They get back on the motorcycle and Daisy feels like some of the pressure has indeed been lifted.

This time she can enjoy the ride; the way Coulson’s quietly locks his hands over Daisy’s stomach, the way he holds her tight, as if he was afraid of falling off, like they were in a movie, romantic music in their heads, that moment she almost feels his breath on her neck, when they stop for a traffic light. 

The way back is both longer and shorter, she means that it feels longer and shorter. She wants to ride all night, yet at the same time there’s this joy in her stomach when they reach _home_.

They put the motorcycle back in its place, even though there’s no way Mack is not going to notice someone took it out. And Daisy might be the Director but she is still scared of receiving a talking-to from Mack, he gets really serious and makes you feel like you have disappointed him so badly. Daisy decides she is going to let Coulson take the blame. What? She has to learn how to _delegate_ now, doesn’t she.

In the garage she can still taste the sweetness of the evening in her mouth. She grabs Coulson by the collar of his jacket and pulls him to her, kissing him hard, trying to get every last moment of sugar and coffee and make it last a few moments longer. She grabs his short hair for a moment, in that familiar way it’s usually reserved for deep darkness, deep night, those times when she allows her hunger and need to be buried in her lover’s skin. It lasts a moment, and she lets go, combing his hair with her fingers until it looks normal, but Coulson is looking at her with the obvious question mark in his expression. She wasn’t joking, this is hard, all of this, and she needed the break and Coulson knew she would never ask for it.

Then she smiles - because she doesn’t want him to worry, and because, right this moment, at least, he actually has nothing to worry about. She’s okay. He’s made sure.

She presses her body against his, another familiar gesture, lighter.

“You getting a craving for donuts… now I’m getting a craving of my own…”

“Yeah? Something I can help you with, Director?” he asks, always helpful.

She looks down, lacing their fingers together, touches him, gentler than her kiss.

“Oh, I’m sure you can give me a hand, Agent Coulson.”


End file.
